


Kings and Queens

by chick_with_wifi



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Post-Book 2: Crooked Kingdom, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 22:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21215828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chick_with_wifi/pseuds/chick_with_wifi
Summary: Kaz sees a ship with the Kerch flag on the horizon and knows that his Wraith has returned.





	Kings and Queens

Kaz Brekker was tired. He was almost used to the perpetual exhaustion that came from going long periods without rest, but sometimes it caught up with him.

As he skimmed over his files sitting while at his desk in the Slat, he fought to keep his eyes open. He was able to manage the finances in his head with ease, but he always liked to have paper backups.

There came a knock at the door and he looked up with his best glare. Still, he knew it had to be something important, otherwise they wouldn't have dared to disturb him. 

"Come in," he called.

The door opened to reveal one of the Dregs’ newer recruits. A young Kerch girl named Brigitte Liekje, who was particularly talented at reading body language and detecting when people were lying. Kaz liked her, much as he was capable of liking any of his colleagues.

"Sorry to bother you," she said. "But a ship with the Kerch flag is on its way into the harbor and I thought you might want to know."

Inej.

"Thank you, Brigitte," he replied. "That will be all."

She nodded, then left quietly and closed the door behind her.

All his earlier exhaustion forgotten, Kaz quickly finished his work. He didn’t want to leave right away in case it made him look too eager. Then he put the folder away in his desk drawer and stood up.

He looked down at his suit, which hung in pristinely-tailored lines, and straightened his tie. Then he ran a comb through his hair and remembered how Inej had always made fun of his haircut. It was longer now and the sides had grown out, so they were almost the same length as the rest of his hair. Maybe she would prefer it like this.

Finally he removed his gloves and with trembling hands laid them on the desk. He had been going without them more often, but still rarely left the Slat not wearing them. Once he had overheard a conversation between Brigitte and Jesper about him, in which Brigitte had commented that she thought Kaz only wore the gloves because it was cold outside.

He was nervous. Maybe he needed to see a medik. Kaz ‘Dirtyhands’ Brekker, the godfather of Ketterdam, didn't get nervous. Not when someone was pointing a gun at him, not when breaking into a merch mansion, except apparently he did when Inej Ghafa was involved.

With this in mind, he grabbed his cane and set off towards Fifth Harbor.

On his way, he reminisced about the last time he had seen Inej. When he had given her _the Wraith_ and brought her family to her. It has taken a lot of work but it was worth it to see her face light up as she ran towards them.

-

_Kaz was still straightening his tie when Inej had already raced over to embrace her parents. He followed at a slower pace, hanging back so he wouldn't intrude on the reunion._

_Inej’s smile was so bright he could almost see the girl she must have been before she was kidnapped. As she clung tearfully to her parents, she was speaking rapidly in Suli. Probably giving a brief and toned-down explanation of what had happened to her during the years they were seperated. Kaz understood a few words here and there, but not enough to follow coherently. He pulled his gloves back on, then looked up when he recognised his name and saw Inej beckoning him over._

_He shook his head, but she was insistent and beckoned again. Reluctantly, he stepped closer to them._

_Inej didn’t miss a beat as she switched to Kerch and said, "This is Kaz Brekker. He has been helping me since I was taken. He’s the one who brought you here."_

_Mr Ghafa shook Kaz’s gloved hand and said, “Mister Brekker, thank you for taking care of our daughter.”_

_"Believe me, she is more than capable of taking care of herself. I just gave her the means to do so," Kaz replied smoothly. _

_It was an interesting way to paraphrase their experiences but it wasn't a lie. Inej nodded, clearly it matched with whatever she had told them._

_“Thank you,” Mrs Ghafa said. “Our Inej is lucky the Saints brought you two together.”_

_Kaz simply nodded, unsure what to say. They were looking at him with gratitude, like he was a good person, and it made him uncomfortable. If they knew half of what he and Inej had done, they would feel very differently._

_"You must be hungry and exhausted from your journey," Inej said to her parents. "Would you like to go somewhere for food? We can catch up properly over some waffles."_

_Mrs Ghafa smiled. “Yes, that sounds nice. Won’t you join us, Mister Brekker?”_

_Kaz glanced at Inej, who nodded again, then he agreed. “Of course.”_

_With Inej leading the way, they set off down the street._

-

Kaz arrived at the berth twenty-two, which he had purchased for Inej. It was where he had seen her leave over a year ago. As _the Wraith_ docked, he was already scanning the deck and rigging for her.

He didn't spot her at first, then all of a sudden she was walking down the gangplank towards him. She looked like a true pirate and was wearing boots, trousers, a loose white shirt and a wide-brimmed hat. Her dark hair was braided over one shoulder and longer than it had been the last time he saw her. He wanted to run his fingers through it and pull it loose.

She stepped onto the cobblestones and he offered her his ungloved hand. "Captain Ghafa."

"Mister Brekker." She shook his hand, equally formal.

Then he released her hand and stepped back, unsure of himself. He wondered if time and distance had made strangers of them. Had she thought about this moment as many times as he had? Or did she only return out of a sense of obligation?

"Shall we go to the Crow Club?" he asked, and she nodded.

They walked in silence for a few moments until Inej admitted, "I wasn't sure if you would be here."

A year ago he would have said something about protecting his investment and out of habit the words were already on his lips, but he refused to let her doubt again. "I will always be here for you," he said. "Always."

He heard her let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. Perhaps she had thought of him while she was away.

They reached the Crow Club’s familiar building and slowly ascended the stairs to his office where they could have some privacy. Inej moved as gracefully as ever, but Kaz's cane thumped on the steps.

It almost felt like old times as Kaz sat in his chair and leaned his cane against the armrest, propping his leg up on the small crate he kept under the desk.

Inej watched him closely as she perched on the edge of the desk, so close that if she moved forward she would almost be sitting in his lap. Kaz wasn't sure how he felt about that. She removed her hat and set it next to her.

"Your leg is worse," she said, matter-of-factly. She had always been good at reading him.

"I'm older," he replied with a shrug.

She nodded in the barest acknowledgement, as if accepting she wasn't going to get any more out of him. He didn't want to tell her that he had fractured the bone again on a job that had gone badly wrong.

A moment of silence passed between them, as if they both needed to re-learn how to be around each other. Like they were reminding themselves of the territory.

As if opening a negotiation, Kaz asked, “What business?”

“My business is that I’ve been catching slavers,” Inej replied, folding her arms. As her sleeve rode up it revealed a scar that hadn’t been there before. “As well you know.”

"And I've been conning men out of their money," he said. "Now that Pekka Rollins has retreated with his tail between his legs and Per Haskell's name is mud, I'm the biggest player on the board."

"You always were," she said. "They were fools not to see that."

He smiled. "Now nobody questions me and I can go after those who deserve it."

It was their agreement. Inej hunted slavers on the sea and Kaz dealt with the bad people on shore. Inej had told him to be the monster he claimed he was, so he became the man Barrell bosses had nightmares about.

"I hear you're getting quite the reputation yourself," Kaz continued. "The Dregs keep coming to me with tails of how _the Wraith_ has become the terror of the seas."

She shrugged, but she was smiling. “You once told me we would be kings and queens,” she said quietly. “I guess that day has finally come.”

He remembered. It was the day he had asked her to accompany him on the Ice Court job. They had been in his office. He’d asked her to order him a new hat. _My darling Inej, treasure of my heart, won’t you do me the honor of acquiring me a new hat?_ At the time he had no idea how true those words would end up being. And he still had that hat.

“Indeed,” he said aloud.

Inej shifted, crossing one leg over the other, and as she did so the end of her braid brushed against his arm. He reached up and ran his fingers down it.

“Go on,” she whispered. _Finish the story._

He gently removed the hair tie and combed the braid out, running his fingers through the soft waves. 

She watched him. She looked even more beautiful with her silky hair framing her face. Then she brought up her own hands to encircle his wrists through his sleeves, and guided him to push her hair back from her face.

He kept his hands where the hair rested against the back of her neck, bare but not touching skin.

“Is this alright?” she murmured.

“Yes,” he replied. It was her, Inej, real and alive and finally in front of him.

She moved closer and put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him forward until their foreheads were touching. 

His breath hitched in his throat and the awful memories hovered on the periphery of his thoughts, but he did his best to push them away and instead focussed on the realness of Inej. The softness of her hair, the pressure of her hands on his shoulders through his jacket.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, touching but not touching, breathing in each other’s presence. There had always been an intimacy between them that he hadn’t felt with anyone else, one that didn’t need to be proved by traditional means.

Another knock came on the door and Inej pulled back instantly, gracefully.

“Hello?” Kaz called, a slight growl in his voice.

Brigitte’s ability to read people clearly extended to their words, since she spoke without opening the door. “Mister Fahey sent over a message. But it can wait.” They heard her footsteps retreating and Inej laughed softly.

Kaz cleared his throat. The spell was broken now.

“We should go and see Jesper,” he said. “He’ll throw a fit if he finds out you were in Ketterdam and didn’t stop by to visit.”

Inej nodded. “I want to see him and Wylan, but not right away.”

He gave her a curious look. “Oh?”

But she ignored him and asked, “Have you heard from Nina?”

“No. Have you?”

“I stopped at Ravka to see her. She’s managing.”

“I’m glad,” Kaz replied. He knew the loss of Matthias had been hard on her.

Inej’s posture had become tense and tightly coiled, like a viper waiting to strike. She had something important to say. “Kaz...there is something I wanted to ask your advice about."

"Ask away."

She seemed to curl in on herself and Kaz remembered listening outside her door as she sobbed on the night of her first kill. "These slavers are awful people. How do you do it? How do you stop someone who is so evil, so devoid of empathy?"

"I've never worried about that," he admitted. "All criminals in the Barrel are as bad as each other."

That wasn't strictly true. He had a code and he kept to it, but Inej wasn't like him. She needed something more.

"Kaz," she said sharply. She saw right through him.

He needed a way to convince her she was doing the right thing. Considering it, he tilted his head to the side. 

"Saints, I'd missed that face," Inej whispered.

Ah yes, scheming face. "Inej," he said eventually. "I don't know why you think I can help you here, but I will say this. Sometimes people are truly irredeemable and they need to be stopped before they cause irreparable harm. This is what you’ve been working towards, finding a way to prevent people from going through what you did. Correct?”

“Yes,” she said. The set of her shoulders loosened.

But something didn’t seem right. Why was she questioning herself like this? “Inej, did something happen?”

“A ship was attacked. Not ours, but we saw it happen. The entire crew was killed before we had a chance to intervene.”

“I’m sorry,” Kaz said.

It clearly cost her great pain to admit it. And he owed her so many explanations. Maybe one day he could make himself equally vulnerable for her, but he wasn't quite there yet. 

She stood up and put her hat back on. "Come on. Let's go see Jesper and Wylan before they march over here themselves."

"Wait," Kaz said suddenly, catching hold of her wrist. _Don't leave me again._ "Promise me you will come back."

“I will always come back to you,” she said. “Always.”


End file.
